Michael Dodds, OP

Some of the courses that I'm teaching now, I have been teaching for almost 30 years-- yet the subjects remain exciting for me and I try to communicate that excitement to my students. There is always the challenge of trying to penetrate the thought of classical authors such as Aristotle and Aquinas more deeply. There are also contemporary developments in scholarship in these areas that present new approaches and challenges. What is most exciting, however, is presenting ideas that are new to students (however old the ideas themselves might be), seeing the "light go on" as students begin to grasp them (the "aha moments"), and hearing the insightful and often challenging questions that the students raise. The whole teaching experience is ever old, yet ever new.

I am more and more convinced that the thought of Thomas Aquinas has enormous wisdom to offer to contemporary issues in philosophy and theology. In philosophy, his appropriation of Aristotle's hylomorphism can bring great insight to the impasse of dualism vs. materialism in discussions of the nature of the human person, the relation of body and soul, and the question of the mind-brain relationship. His account of causality is immediately relevant to the notion of emergence in contemporary science and its impulse to retrieve formal and final causality. His ideas of primary and secondary causality as well as principal and instrumental causality are essential to a theological understanding of divine action-- so central to the dialogue between science and theology over the last several decades.

I have become increasingly intrigued with the notion of chance. In science, it is central to accounts of biological evolution and to the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics. In philosophy, it remains a challenge to describe exactly what kind of cause "chance" is - if it is a cause at all. In theology, it is a conundrum for many to see how divine providence and divine action are compatible or even possible in a world characterized by chance. In all of these areas, Aquinas's thought can be extremely helpful. I addressed the issue in my Unlocking Divine Action: Contemporary Science and Thomas Aquinas.

"The Doctrine of Causality in Aquinas and The Book of Causes: One Key to Understanding the Nature of Divine Action." In Aquinas's Sources. Edited by Timothy L. Smith. South Bend, IN: St. Augustine's Press, (forthcoming). [Also:http://www.nd.edu/Departments/Maritain/ti00/dodds.htm.]

"Top Down, Bottom Up or Inside Out? Retrieving Aristotelian Causality in Contemporary Science." In Science, Philosophy and Theology. Edited by John O'Callaghan. South Bend, IN: St. Augustine's Press, (forthcoming). [Also:http://www.nd.edu/Departments/Maritain/ti/dodds.htm].

"The God of Life, the Science of Life, and the Problem of Language." In God: Reason and Reality. Edited by Anselm Ramelow, O.P. Munich: Philosophia Verlag, 2014, 197-231.

"Scientific Vetoes and the 'Hands-off' God: Divine Immanence, Quantum Mechanics, and the Search for a Better Way." Response to Thomas Tracy, "Scientific Vetoes and the "Hands-off" God: Can We Say that God Acts in History?" Theology and Science 10 (2012): 89-94.

"The Teaching of Thomas Aquinas on the Mysteries of the Life of Christ (Summa Theologiae, Part III, Questions 27-45)." In Aquinas on Doctrine: a Critical Introduction. Edited by Thomas G. Weinandy, OFM. Cap., Daniel Keating and John Yocum. London: T&T Clark/ Continuum, 2004, 91-115.

"Faith, Science, and the Creator." Interview on the DVD, Cosmic Origins: The Scientific Evidence for Creation, presented by Fr. Robert Spitzer, S.J. San Francisco: Ignatius Press and Origin Entertainment, 2012.

Divine Action - showing how the discoveries of contemporary science invite a retrieval of Aquinas' understanding of efficient, formal, and final causality

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O God, grant that whatever good things I have, I may share generously with those who have not, and that whatever good things I do not have, I may request humbly from those who do. Plant deep in me, Lord, all the virtues, that I might be devout in divine matters, discerning in human affairs, and burdensome to no one in fulfilling my own bodily needs. Order me inwardly through a good life that I might do what is right and what will be meritorious for me and a good example for others.